工作是走是留? 有公式幫你選擇
Now that we're through the lethal Christmas Firing Season, when corporations celebrate what should be the happiest time of the year by heaving people from the balustrades, it may be a good time to assess our chances of making it through all four quarters of the current calendar year. I believe I've stumbled upon a powerful mathematical tool that will take the subject out of the speculative zone. I humbly present an equation to calculate your likelihood of survival:
聖誕節應該是一年中最快樂的時刻，可許多公司卻以將員工掃地出門的方式來“慶祝”。如今，我們已經平安度過了可怕的聖誕節辭退季，是時候評估一下我們安然度過今年四個季度的可能性了。我認爲，我偶然遇到了一個強大的數學工具，可以讓員工不再爲這個問題糾結。下面就是計算員工生存概率的等式：E = mc2
E = mc2In plain English, this means that your exposure to danger, E, is a function of certain factors we will examine in a moment, m, multiplied by the amount of money senior management is spending on consultants, c2. Let's look at m first, since it's the key measurement in our calculation.
簡單地說，這個公式是指員工將承受的風險E，等於我們下文研究的一系列因數m，乘以公司高管爲諮詢顧問支付的資金金額c2。我們首先來看一下m，因爲這是計算中的關鍵指標。
The state of your industry and the confidence your senior management has in it (20%):Some companies are run by people who believe in their business. Others are not. If your management believes your company can grow, you can keep this number down. Employees of the "we are doomed" school of management, not so much.
所在行業的狀況及公司高管對行業的信心（20%）：部分公司的負責人對公司業務信心滿滿。而有些公司負責人則較爲悲觀。如果你所在公司的管理團隊相信，公司能夠實現增長，那麼這個信心比例是可以成立的。但如果公司管理層認爲“我們玩完了”，則該信心比例將會降低。Your tenure and cost to the organization (30%): How much money could the company save if it hoisted you by your expensive petard? Gulp twice if that question makes you nervous.
員工任期及公司在此期間花在你身上的成本（30%）：如果公司以聘用你的成本過高爲理由炒你的魷魚，公司能夠節省多少開支？如果這個問題讓你感到緊張，那就做兩個深呼吸吧。Your fungibility (20%): Of course you're good at what you do, and that counts in your favor. But if tough decisions had to be made, would you be easy to replace with another cog in the machine? Could your duties be handed to somebody else, and the whale continue to cut through the water without coughing? If so, this number will be high for you, because you are fungible. On the bright side, you can decrease this liability, either by carving out new turf for yourself or by killing the people who could do what you do.
你的可替代性（20%）：當然，你對自己在的工作非常擅長，這很重要，對你也非常有利。但如果必須做出艱難的決定，公司是否很容易就能用其他人來代替你？如果把你的職務交接給其他人，公司是否依舊能夠正常運行？如果答案是肯定的，那麼這個比例就會比較高，因爲你是可替代的。不過，從好的方面來看，你可以開拓新領域，或者幹掉可能代替你的人，以此減輕這種傾向。Your crony factor (10%): Do you play quoits with Mr. Roover? Run in the morning with the finance team? Get plastered after work with Bob? All that stuff counts, you know. It's not dispositive. But it counts.
親信因素（10%）：你會跟魯弗先生玩套圈遊戲嗎？早上會與財務團隊一起跑步嗎？下班之後會與鮑勃喝個痛快嗎？雖然這些都不是決定性因素，但卻非常重要。Are you loved? (5%): It's a small part of the equation, but it's been known to save more than one life.
你是否受青睞？（5%）：這在等式中只佔很小一部分，但卻曾讓許多人化險爲夷。This brings us to c, the quantity, when squared, that puts all employees at risk. It may be ascertained in your corporation by estimating the amount of money senior management is spending on consultants. That is the number they have to justify. Get that number and you have the constant.
接下來是c，即數量的平方，它會使所有員工面臨風險。在你的公司內，通過估算公司高層用於諮詢顧問的開支金額，就可確定這個因數。他們必須對這個數字進行說明。得到該數值後，便可作爲常量。Execute the calculation now that you have all the components. If the result is more than 50 times the cost of consultancy, dust off your résumé.
確定所有因數之後，執行運算。如果結果超過諮詢工作成本的50倍，那麼恭喜你，趕快準備簡歷吧。Oh, there's one other thing. If you are already underpaid, overworked, overwrought, exploited, underappreciated, and routinely the last guy to leave at the end of the day, make your m a zero. And zero times anything still comes out zero, no matter how many consultants are rummaging about with their whiteboards.
另外，還有一件事。如果你的薪酬已經很低，工作過度，勞累不堪，受到老闆的剝削，得不到上級的賞識，經常是每天最後一個離開公司的人，那你的得分只會是零。而零乘以任何數的結果依然是零，無論高層找了多少顧問來諮詢。
